building a book isn't any easier for me

and other writerly admissions

Don’t think it’s any easier for me, this book building thing. I might structure books for a living, and have worked on dozens of them, but when it come to my next book, I’m at square one.

Last summer when I was packing boxes to do the downsize-combine-houses-move-in-with-the-man relocate I noticed that three of my dearest, most loved books weren’t there on the shelf where I kept my “specials”. That was a red flag for me. You see, I’m a nester. I unpack, relocate, put things in order by colour or alphabetically, and I make sure that the piping on my pillows is the exact colour of the trim paint. Well, I always had.

But in 2024 when I was meticulously labelling 35 boxes by genre for donation to a literary charity, I realized that my copies of Frankenstein had never been unpacked. For all of the pandemic in the rental house I shared with my roommate sons, I hadn’t pulled out my multiple editions of my favourite book…for me that meant I wasn’t settled at all, let alone nested. I reread “Frank” every year, and I hadn’t even noticed it wasn’t nearby, let alone languishing in the basement of my rental.

I sat back on my heels when I realized I had only been touching down in houses I’d lived in, not getting attached to them, making them my own. How long had I been living that way, I wondered?

I didn’t know what I wanted after I’d sold my last home. My sons were doing great, healthwise and lifewise, and we were all excited about our next thing at the end of 2019. Then people started getting ill in massive numbers globally, and my work in California got forced to an end because I couldn’t travel anymore. When I got locked down in 2020, my fledging post-caregiving life building got shut down. It gave me an excuse to not wish, dream or make plans. I’d never been good at those things and the COVID lockdown, something I found quite lovely, actually, because my next excuse.

In my book I’m considering what we can learn about ourselves from “Things We Choose To Keep”. My missing books showed me that my hypervigilance as a caregiver had robbed me of the ability to be present, celebratory or even passionate about my life and my future.

I have eleven copies of Frankenstein beside me on a labelled shelf right now. I’m trying to make a wish list, and think of what I might want next, and the books remind me that we can love the place we’re in and still wish to find ourselves elsewhere in future.